ELECT Blog Election Law Essays on Current Topics

How to Change Your Voter Registration

This is a topic that is very familiar to me—I just did it last week when I moved.  It is extremely easy to change your voter registration in South Carolina and there are several ways to do so.

First—and what I wish I had known—you can simply change your address with the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles.  South Carolina law provides a change of address form submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles serves as a “notification of change of address for voter registration” UNLESS you specify that your voter registration should not be changed.  S.C. Code Ann. § 7-5-320(D).  I guess it’s helpful to read the law and not just Google things!  You can change your address with the Department of Motor Vehicles online here: https://www.scdmvonline.com/Public/TransactionList.aspx

Second—and the route I took—you can submit an online voter registration form here: https://info.scvotes.sc.gov/eng/ovr/start.aspx.  After completing the online registration, you will receive a new voter registration card in the mail within a week.  One caveat, to change your registration online, you must first update your information with the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (now it all makes sense).

Third, you can fill out the back of your current voter registration card and mail it to your county voter registration office.  For Richland County, the County Board of Elections and Voter Registrations mailing address is:

Richland County Board of Elections and Voter Registration

PO Box 192

Columbia, SC 29202

Fourth—if you can’t find your current voter registration card—you can download, print, and fill out a change of address form and either mail, scan, or fax the form to your county voter registration office.  The Richland County Board of Elections and Voter Registrations prefers mailing, per their website, and you can use the address above.

Finally, you can visit your local voter registration office and fill out a change of address form there.

Multiple options, same result—you can vote!  If you go to the South Carolina State Election Commission’s Page titled “Update your Voter Registration Information”—you can access that page here: https://www.scvotes.org/update-your-voter-registration-information — you can view change of voter registration instructions and other helpful information.